(Photos © J. Maus)
This afternoon I stopped by the shop of local bike builder Tony Pereira.
Tony has come a long way since I first made note of his arrival in Portland (via Salt Lake City) back in November of 2005. Since then, his business has matured, he’s moved into a new shop, and has won several “Best of” trophies at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
Today, he was putting the finishing touches on four new bikes he just built that will see action in this weekend’s Single Speed World Championships (SSWC) in Napa California. Tony built these gorgeous, 29-inch mountain bikes for himself and three of his close friends from his former hometown.
While looking over the bikes, Tony pointed out one very special component — a Chris King bottom bracket. Chris King sponsored Pereira’s SSWC team and, as a wedding present (he was just married last weekend), decided to give Tony the first-ever, non-prototype versions of this long-awaited product (they unveiled a prototype at Downieville last month).
Most people won’t realize what a big deal a Chris King bottom bracket is… but this is a product Mr. King has been talking about, promising, and fiddling with for over a decade (at least). Tony wasn’t told too many details about from company spokesman Chris Distefano, and all he could tell me is that the bearings are serviceable and that, “it threaded on very smooth.”
See more photos of Tony’s new single speeds and listen to him talk about his friends, and how they helped him launch his framebuilding career, in the audio slideshow below (remember, the button at the far right of the player will launch it in full-screen mode):
Good luck in Napa Tony!